The International Association for Impact Assessment - IAIA (www.iaia.org) is a professional association founded in 1980. IAIA has
3400 individual members from over 100 countries, including those from its 13 national affiliates.

IAIA is active in promoting the practice of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Impact Assessment (IA) worldwide. We
respectfully invite the Rio+20 Conference Secretariat and the participant governments to consider the following:

? The Organization for Economic Cooperation - OECD has a new policy on SEA (2008), the European Union has the SEA Directive (2001),
and many developing countries in the last 5 years have been applying SEA to sectoral planning.

? SEA and IA help ensure that high
level policies, programs and projects are designed and implemented with more sustainable outcomes while also reducing poverty and
advancing Green economy objectives.

? SEA and IA work to ensure that development activities of individual sectors complement rather
than undermine other sectors. They provide a systematic means for minimizing potential adverse outcomes and maximizing benefits early
in policy, program and project design.

? SEA and IA are used to find legislative and policy gaps that would hinder achievement of
sustainable development.

? When SEA and IA processes take root in key, cross-sectoral line ministries, the projects that get approved
and implemented will have gone through a very rigorous sustainability filter, where full social and economic costs are examined.

? SEA and IA, underpinned by participatory processes, ensure development processes are inclusive and give a voice to society's most
vulnerable.

? SEA and IA can alert decision makers to risks, improve community engagement, incorporate traditional knowledge, and facilitate
cooperation across sectors and boundaries prior to strategic decisions being taken.

? The results of SEA and IA are used to inform
the development of future proposals. They also inform on-going decision-making relating to a given geographic entity such as a
country, a province or a river basin, including transboundary and shared basins.

? Political support for sustainable development
and the Green economy, which are core objectives of Ri0+20, can be advanced if countries take full advantage of effective existing
tools such as SEA and IA.

IAEA urges the Rio+20 Conference Secretariat and the participant countries to consider the adoption of the following statement in the
Conference Final Declaration:

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Impact .Assessment (IA) be recognised by States as effective high level decision support processes that can assist in the implementation of political commitment to Sustainable Development and Green economy initiatives.